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Facebook Suspends Another Data Analytics Firm After CNBC Discovers It Was Using Tactics like Cambridge Analytica (cnbc.com)
Facebook suspended a company from its site over the weekend while it investigates claims it harvested user information under the guise of academic research, in a case with echoes of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. From a report: Facebook is suspending a data analytics firm called CubeYou from the platform after CNBC notified the company that CubeYou was collecting information about users through quizzes. CubeYou misleadingly labeled its quizzes "for non-profit academic research," then shared user information with marketers. The scenario is eerily similar to how Cambridge Analytica received unauthorized access to data from as many as 87 million Facebook user accounts to target political marketing. CubeYou, whose CEO denies any deception, sold data that had been collected by researchers working with the Psychometrics Lab at Cambridge University, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used information it obtained from other professors at the school for political marketing.
Journalists are trained to dig and find this information. Being that they have the First Amendment behind them, it gives them additional freedom to dig further then what Facebook may be able to legally do. Say you had a Facebook App that collected data on a user, lets say is was just an honest thing. Now Facebook demands that they audit your application and your business. You as the Small Business owner would be annoyed, and may hire a lawer(s) to push back.
The Journalist who may be hunting breadcrumbs would be able to do such work, because they havn't signed any contracts with either company and can dig in your trash, or back track from your other customers.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Being that they have the First Amendment behind them, it gives them additional freedom to dig further then what Facebook may be able to legally do.
The first amendment does not give journalists access to private companies' data.
People are upset because a company associated, with some degrees of separation, with Trump, used the technique to find people to "target," and this is some how a "data breach" and "interference in democracy," but when Facebook gave the same type of data to the Obama or Clinton campaigns, it was "the campaign tactics of the future" and "an excellent use of technology and analytics".
Probably because the Obama campaign didn't use said tools to spread propaganda and blatant lies. And it wasn't a superPAC hiding the financial backing, meaning that if they got caught in a lie, it'd lead right back to them. It's a great argument for overturning Citizens United.
Great power, great responsibility, blah blah blah.
So, from what I gather, the controversy is almost entirely to do with people discovering that Facebook isn't on their "side",
Yeah pretty much. I see a lot of parallels with the cable-leaks, it revealed the exact sort of relationship that activities were complaining about and really brought the issue into the mind of the public. For like... a month or two. Don't worry, they'll forget once the next crisis comes up.